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The Church Becomes The Enemy of Christ
A few hundred years after the establishment of God’s kingdom through Jesus and the church, easy entrance into a local fellowship was considered dangerous to the church due to persecution. They could be letting in spies. Perspective Christians had to study for 3 years, which weeded out the unserious. That is understandable from a human perspective, but still unbiblical.
What is even more unbiblical and saddening is certain groups were automatically excluded: prostitutes and their pimps, those involved in entertainment such as actors, gladiators, and circus people. Even most government workers were excluded because they worked for the pagan state. Can we see how opposite this is to John’s work with soldiers and tax collectors in Luke 3? Jesus was accused was being guilty of wrongdoing for eating with people like these in Luke 15.
It is not our job to weed out the unserious if we practice sowing like the sower. Neither it is our business to discredit someone due to their past. It only took a couple of hundred of years for the church – using human reasoning – to become exactly like the Pharisees. As we know, these made themselves the enemies of Jesus.
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